faderift | war table: the riftwatch cultural exposition.

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war table: the riftwatch cultural exposition.

WHO: Innovators
WHAT: Riftwatch hosts a world's first Cultural Exposition
WHEN: Now
WHERE: University of Orlais
NOTES: OOC post

Music filters through the expansive hall of the University of Orlais. The knot of musicians here to underscore any awkward silences with gentle lute plucking and flute piping are stationed under the glow of tall stained glass windows, and seem to be playing a tune that a few people among Riftwatch may recognise resembles the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams". It echoes off the rounded stone walls, where small stages and displays await the curious for closer inspection.

Welcome to the Riftwatch Cultural Exposition.

The Exposition takes place over two long days. A printed program has neatly allotted everyone windows of time for presentation, in which those in attendance filter towards the designated banner, corner, or antechamber (as desired) to listen with reserved or perhaps enthusiastic interest to the otherworldly.marvels on display.

In between these presentations, a mix of academics, artists, merchants, and miscellaneous others wander the hall, chatting together, engaging members of Riftwatch in conversation. Anticipate some curiosity into not only the items or ideas you have on display, but also the world you come from, and how it differs from Thedas. And remember to keep certain innovative information under lock and key for now.

A small taskforce of undergraduates have been recruited to assist in running platters of pizza and peanut butter chocolate chip cookies around the hall, in helping to set up display stages or assist in interactive demonstrations, or to shepherd the nearby crowd closer when it comes time for your presentation, so make use of them.

NOTE: Consult the Points Distribution Chart to see what kinds of threads can earn us points and therefore results from the overall event! Honour system in place, so please only mark a Bank item complete if you progress a thread relevant to that item.

Once we have some points banked, we'll figure out how to distribute their spending, so don't spend 'em yet!

Drop any questions you have here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The respite of an audience moving onto the next table sees the opportunity to tidy up. He's just begun wiping down the apple-potato instrument when Strange steps up. Glancing at the globe, Jayce smiles wryly and looks back to him. "Sure does -- like static electricity cranked up to eleven. Just don't touch it with your shard. Not here, anyway."

They may not know each other, but they'd all traveled together here as a group (more or less) and, just the same, seen enough of each other around the Gallows for basic recognition.

“And what happens if you do touch it with your shard?” Strange asks mildly, aloof with a kind of academic curiosity, but also the needling, pressing awareness that that knowledge must have been obtained first-hand by the pair of inventors. “Like, is it ‘blow up the expo’ bad or ‘you just get a painful shock’ bad?”

It’s a little disconcerting, maybe, that his question goes straight for the worst-case scenario — but this is also such a common trend amongst the people in Research. They like to push the boundaries. Like to know the rules, so they can know which ones they ought to break. Under Tony, they’re looking into the sorts of things which would give regular Thedosian Joe a heart attack.

But Strange keeps his face arranged into the most innocent of expressions he can manage: this is just normal curiosity for normal reasons. He wouldn’t just shove his anchor-shard on the big glowy thing when explicitly told not to do that very thing, totally, of course not.

Not here, anyway.

He arches a brow, but his smile grows a little wider. "I don't think the Provost would've authorized it if it were the former. Bad for relations."

Jayce sets down the instrument and rag, and offers Strange what amounts to approximately half of a peeled-and-spiraled apple on a small plate. "Touching it with my anchor produced a shockwave that tossed me a few feet and left my arm tingling for a few hours." With a shrug, he adds, "No permanent damage. I think."

Oh goodie, snacks — Strange takes the apple, grateful and peckish (you forget to eat while you’re camped out at your table all day, hawking wares). He nibbles contemplatively on it while they discuss.

“‘You think’,” he repeats, but there’s a touch of amusement in the man’s voice, no real censure. “Good enough for government work, I suppose. At least there aren’t really any other people with anchor-shards around, aside from us, so we’re the only ones at risk of embarrassing ourselves in front of the faculty.”

He gestures to the Thaumosphere. “You have the star of the exhibition, I think. People love flash and bright lights.”

Still smiling, he sighs and shakes his head in humored resignation. "Yeah, they do. Reel 'em in with the show, then invest their 'oohs' and 'ahhs' into work that actually matters, right?"

Except--

"--oh," he says a little apologetically, because Strange is a medical professional. "But, you know, your work always matters."

“I mean, I wish it were flashier. If it were, it would probably hold their attention better. A lot of them get a glazed look in their eyes whenever we try to explain about antiseptic. It’s hard to make medicine exciting unless it’s surgery.”

Some of Strange’s innate biases keep rearing their heads in things like this, and understandably so: surgeons were typically the hotshot showoffs in hospitals, and with swaggering egos to boot. (He has to keep reminding himself: he’s not a surgeon anymore.)

“What’s your favourite invention? Either here or back at the Gallows or, hell, back home.”

A chance to cut is a chance to cure probably applies to most universes, he thinks, but he has never had a stomach for such things, so Strange's casual steering back toward inventions is -- unconsciously -- welcomed. There's a brief pause of consideration before Jayce reaches for the rag again, cleaning of the apple-and-potato-corer-etc resumed.

"Has Viktor talked about any of them?" The Hexgates, perhaps -- but he assumes Viktor is about as boastful here as he has been in Piltover, which means not at all.

“The Hexgates, mostly, and for good reason. A tower thousands of meters high in the sky? A portal large enough for airships to fly through? Impressive stuff. We discussed the similarities in our systems; magic in my own world also uses runic scripts, as does Thedas, so there’s some fascinating overlap to examine. You’d almost think there’s some existential drive across universes, pushing magic into a similar shape again and again.”

Strange lifts his free hand, an index finger sketching the shape of imaginary runes in mid-air, a circle carved into nothing. It had been easier to lure Viktor into talking about his work when it wasn’t inciting boastfulness; when it was, instead, pressing him with scientific inquiry and curiosity.

“Apart from that, though, not much else.”

He's nodding along as Strange speaks. The overlap of magic makes sense; so many other concepts already do -- physics and biology, perhaps, most obviously -- but he hesitates to hope without substance.

"In a way, maybe that's all we managed to accomplish," is said with a note of wry disappointment. "It was meant to help the everyday person, Hextech. We'd finally gotten to that point. We'd stabilized the power source so ordinary people could use it safely, and then..." Jayce makes a frustrated motion with his free hand. "...other people happened."

(But that was part of the problem -- considering them as other.)

“Don’t they always. What kind of other people?” There’s such a wide variety of roadblocks which could have happened, and Strange is already trying to imagine it, wondering what it could be: an invading army, rival magitech engineers, a bureaucratic committees, a meddling government?

“I imagine Tony,” a tilt of his head to where their provost is holding court on the other side of the hall, it looks like he’s trying to explain something about the vanes to some skeptical-looking observers, “knows what that’s like. The power sources you both have described remind me of his miniature arc reactor. My magical studies, I had the benefit of operating independently. Secretive magical societies with no outside oversight, you know how they are.”

Said lightly, offhand; with a joking tone but it’s the truth.

Jayce follows the direction of said head tilt; a lopsided smile tugs at his lips. With a shrug, he says wistfully, "Wish I did. Viktor and I were basically flying by the seat of our pants for years. Our, um..." His eyes lower for a moment; he sets the tool down. "Our professor was familiar with magic, but afraid of it. The whole city was, of course. He'd founded Piltover to get away from mages, and it's..." He exhales the hint of a laugh, but there's no humor to be found. "It sounds familiar, doesn't it?"

This fear of those born with a connection to the arcane.

"When power is taken by the wrong hands." His own seek the next tool to clean and polish. "He had a point. Someone stole one of the gemstones. The, uh, the stabilized power source. Someone who hated us, and... well." He grimaces. "Can't do much but hope they figure it out. Not," he adds loudly and hastily, "the people who hate us, but the, uh, the me and everyone else still... there..."

“Ah. Yeah. We had something like that too. Lost a precious magical stone which could control time.”

There’s a similarly rueful twist to Strange’s expression. He doesn’t mention the fact that, technically, he gave it away. It’s complicated.

“We’ll just have to be more careful about it here. Hopefully we attract the… right sort of attention,” he says, looking at the dignitaries and academics across the room. He finishes eating the last of the apple, wiping his hands off on his trousers.

“If we get some additional funding out of the expo, that would be great. People wanting to experiment with the theories beneath our technology, also good. Thieves, not so much.”

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

war table: the riftwatch cultural exposition.

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